| Author |
 Topic  |
|
|
wcerto
Ahonui
USA
5052 Posts |
 Posted - 01/26/2008 : 12:22:46 AM
|
It is once again that time of the year when Kaua`i residents and vistors alike get the opportunity to learn about the music, jam together, sing together and share the artists' mana`o. Carol Yotsuda writes a wonderful newsletter after each session. Her accounts are so great that you almost think you were there.
Lucky you live Kaua`i.
------------------------------------
EKK 2008 - Na Alo Hou
>
> On Sunday, January 20, the night before our EKK Monday, we launched
> our 2008 Silver Anniversary season with a concert at the Kauai
> Community College. KAUKAHI, made up of Kawika Kahiapo, Barrett Awai,
> Dean Wilhelm and Walter Keale, engaged the audience at a spiritual
> level with their amazing harmonies. Each artist was featured with
> their favorite songs and stories, but together their voices blended in
> rich harmony which is quite difficult to describe. It just is.
>
> Opening the concert were the EKK coordinators for the past 25 years
> each with their special brand of music -- Nathan Kalama opened the
> first half with a pule and closed with his interactive “Japan
> Airlines” hula which had the entire audience on their feet and
> dancing. Fran Nestel along with Richard Beach and Peggy Lake honored
> Frances Frazier with one of her many compositions. Cindy Combs,
> accomplished kiho’alu artist, added her special jazzy style of
> singing. The effervescent Lady Ipo, along with Garrett Santos and
> Kimo Kaneakua, sang several numbers including her wonderful “Song for
> Mama” and invited all the hula dancers in the audience to come up on
> stage for “Hanalei Moon”. I recapped 25 years down memory lane with a
> DVD capturing some of the best photo memories....have to wait another
> 25 years for my ukulele and hula numbers.
>
> Spirituality is the keystone of Kaukahi music
>
> As the first EKK Monday of the 2008 season ended and joyous
> participants streamed out of the main hall at Island School, a
> gentleman visiting from Seattle stopped and said to me with tears in
> his eyes, “This evening has brought so much love into my life.” He
> wrote on his sign in sheet, “EKK was the best experience I had in my
> month on Kauai.”
>
> A lady cornered me at intermission and said, “I love this! I thought
> only the ukulele folks could participate and I’m so happy that we
> could all sing!” As she and her husband left, he said, “This is just
> unique and wonderful to be able to participate with the musicians!”
>
> Local folks and snow birds chattered happily greeting each other
> after months of life in their respective corners of the world.
> Visitors asked a lot of questions about what to expect. “Expect the
> unexpected,” is all I can answer. Each week unfolds in its own way.
>
> The evening began with an hour for those with ukulele and guitars.
> Walt worked with the large ukulele group for the first hour while
> Kawika and Dean sat outside with the guitar players and shared their
> instrumental styles and secrets.
>
> Kawika Kahiapo, Dean Wilhelm and Walter Keale shared stories about the
> group KAUKAHI and the songs they love or composed. It all started
> with a barbecue in Dean’s garage among friends just getting to know
> each other. Music is always a part of such barbecues so when they
> began singing song after song, they could each hear and feel that
> something very unexpected and special was happening. They kept looking
> at each other in surprise, wondering “What’s going on?” The music
> that night in the garage “....was so close to what you heard on the
> stage,” said Kawika.
>
> Family members suggested, “Wow! You should form a band!” Going with
> the flow, these three musicians and upright bass player Barrett Awai,
> who was also present, got together as “Kaukahi” -- translating into
> Unity in Purpose -- and the rest is history.
>
> “Life In These Islands”, the first song they taught us, won the 2007
> Na Hoku Hanohano award for “song of the year” and was written about
> ten years ago by Kawika in the performance style of the Makaha Sons of
> Hawai’i, musically and lyrically, as it was his intention to share the
> song with them. The opportunity never arose for them to get together
> so when the Kaukahi group was formed, they sang it as the title song
> for the album which garnered them also the “Group of the Year” and
> best CD cover design at NHH awards.
>
> Kawika, who I have met at a few gatherings of musicians in the past,
> is a soft spoken man of few words, but I always noticed that other
> musicians really listened when he spoke. On Monday, his eloquence
> with words was evident as he described the love and appreciation of
> life in these islands that motivated the song. He summarized it as,
> “...the melting pot of Hawaii has become this ‘Stew of
> Diversity’....”. A minister of nine years he conveys the spirituality
> that he sees in the very ordinary things in life.
>
> Walt, fun-loving and always full of stories, views the audience as
> active forth graders (his regular charge in his day job) and engages
> everyone with hand motions that are akin to hula motions. It certainly
> helps one to catch on to the Hawaiian words. “Ku’u Kumu”
> written by the teachers of Aha Punanaleo is the song that he taught
> us, complete with hand and body motions. When Walt sings, there is a
> unique quality and style that reminds me of warm spring water flowing
> over river rocks...smooth, very smooth.
>
> Dean says music is just a part of who they are. Just as content with
> playing music in the garage, recognition is not something they strive
> for but is much appreciated when received. Sharing their music and
> having it so gracefully received and appreciated is the most important
> thing to them. He taught us “E Na Punahele” by Mary Boyd, an auntie
> from the Big Island. It is the last song on their CD as Aloha is one
> of the primary expressions that they wish to convey.
>
> At EKK questions by the audience often trigger responses that give
> insight into the artists. Kawika, who won the prestigious “Kiho’alu
> Artist of the Year” at the 2007 NHH awards was asked how he started in
> music. When he was 8 years old, his dad stuck an ukulele in his lap
> and strummed it; the vibration of the instrument sent a spiritual
> charge through his young body and he started to play the ukulele.
> When he was 10 years old, his dad did the same thing with a guitar,
> and the vibration of the guitar went through his body and he was
> hooked, thirsting for lessons from his Dad and uncles. No need to say
> more.
>
> As they taught their songs, they demonstrated the various slack key
> tunings and strumming techniques. Kawika related the hilarious
> Portugee version of how the comb fell onto the strings and created a
> rippling sound which became one of the kiho’alu strums. At one point
> in his performing life, he even brought several guitars on stage each
> with a different slack key tuning so that he could just switch guitars
> for different songs, but it did not work because he forgot how each
> guitar was tuned.
>
> So many mainstream musicians like Keith Richards, Steven Stills, and
> Jack Johnson are influenced by and incorporate slack key tunings into
> their songs. It was an evening of fun, lot of laughter, and genuine
> interaction between the artists and the audience.
>
> The last third of the evening, which went by in a flash, was filled
> with their beautiful singing. Kawika shared a heartwarming song he
> learned at age 12, written by legendary composer and cultural
> practitioner Keola Beamer about the process of learning and passing on
> the culture, “Real Old Style.”
>
> Dean spoke about his own experiences growing up in Hawaii. Earlier in
> the evening, one of the participants wanted to know his background and
> how he came to be part of this group as outwardly he appears very
> haole (caucasion). He is the child of a Hawaiian mother, who felt she
> had to play down her Hawaiian-ness as she was growing up, and a father
> who was a chef from Switzerland. Growing up during the resurgence of
> Hawaiian music and dance known as the Hawaiian renaissance and
> attending Kamehameha School, Dean said, “I grew up not looking
> Hawaiian but having great pride growing up Hawaiian...,”
> because the haole boy going to Kam school did not have to deal with
> what his mother experienced in her youth. He spoke about his Hawaiian
> grandpa who grew up in Nanakuli Hawaiian homesteads, who referred to
> Dean as “my haole grandson”, something Dean did not understand until
> later as being Grandpa’s terms of endearment toward him. Choking with
> emotion as he told his story, it was very evident he felt great pride
> and recognition in who he is -- Hawaiian.
>
> “Ku’u Home O Kahalu’u” by Jerry Santos and “Waimanalo Blues” by Liko
> Martin (later sang as “Nanakuli Blues”) are two songs that most
> inspired Dean Wilhelm, so he sang “Ku’u Home O Kahalau” much to
> everyone’s delight.
>
> Walt explained the significance of the words in “Waianae” which speak
> of Hawaiian geneology, being a chosen one when you hanae into a
> family, the birthing grounds in that district, ancestors and Ke Akua.
> So much information in a song.
>
> “O O’e I’o” comes from a Maori chant. Full of metaphors, this song
> describes the purposeful migration of the early Polynesians who sailed
> with the stars and the guidance of a greater spiritual being.
> Kaukahi started the concert with this song and ended Monday night with
> it.
>
> Having heard their individual stories, the songs became all the more
> meaningful to everyone there. Closing with “Hawaii Aloha”, everyone
> could feel that intangible spirit of unity in purpose conveyed by the
> Hawaiian gentlemen of Kaukahi.
>
> The second EKK Monday, January 28, will feature Dean Keola Alalem,
> Sanoe Duarte and Jed Hanada of Kaua’i . . .”Expect the Unexpected!”
>
|
Me ke aloha
Malama pono,
Wanda |
|
|
Auntie Maria
Ha`aha`a
USA
1918 Posts |
Posted - 01/26/2008 : 08:09:50 AM
|
Carol Yotsuda and her wonderful menehune have been presenting this annual series of weekly workshops & concerts for 31 years...one of our island's most unique events. And these are free!!
Every year's series has a theme...one year it was `ohana, this year it's "new faces", presenting musicians who have not previously been featured at EKK.
Here's the 2008 EKK calendar -- the final entry is the closing concert (not free):
Monday, January 28 Keola Alalem, Sanoe Duarte, Jed Hanada
Monday, February 4 Malani Bilyeu
Monday, February 11 Anthony Natividad
Monday, February 18 Puamana: Mihana Souza, A`ima McManus, Luana McKinney, plus 100 year old ukulele virtuoso Bill Tapia
Monday, February 25 Keala Ching, Rolinda Bean
Monday, March 3 Napua Greig, Sean Naleimaile, Emerson Kihei Nahale`a
Monday, March 10 The Kama`ainas:
Ambrose Smith, David Sproat, Gabby Manintin, Edward Punua
Monday, March 17 Taro Patch Band: Mark Jiminez, John Aana, Ross Barker, Paul Williams
Monday, March 24 Ozzie Kotani, Danny Carvalho
Monday, March 31 Paul Togioka, Dolly Kanekuni, Brent Eynon
Monday, April 7 TBA
Sunday, April 13 EKK Concert Finale: Aaron Mahi, Dennis Kamakahi, David Kamakahi, Natalie Ai Kamauu, `Iolani Kamauu, Chad Ai, Ladies of Kapu Kinimaka’s Na Hula O Kaohikukapulani |
Auntie Maria
===================
My "Aloha Kaua`i" radio show streams FREE online every Thu & Fri 7-9am (HST)
www.kkcr.org - Kaua`i Community Radio
"Like" Aloha Kauai on Facebook, for playlists and news/info about island music and musicians!
|
 |
|
| |
Topic |
|
|
|
Topic Locked
